To avoid a clash with the Union Environment and Forest Ministry over environmental clearance for coal projects, the Coal Ministry has sought permission for mining on the land which is not under dense forest and wildlife corridor. A proposal to this effect has been submitted to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, by Union Minister of State for Coal Sriprakash Jaiswal. It is against the backdrop of increasing coal production that permission has...

“All these people who got MBAs made a mistake,” according to Jim Rogers, the commodities investor, at the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit last month. “The City of London and Wall Street are not going to be great places to be in the next two or three decades. It’s going to be the people who produce real goods in charge – the farmers and the miners.” With commodities up 42pc since the beginning...

The Environment and Forests Ministry was in news throughout 2010 -- be it for Vedanta Resources, Posco and Lavasa -- or for Jairam Ramesh's aggressive green activism. While the ministry rejected the green signal to Vedanta for its $1.7 billion project to mine bauxite in the Niyamgiri Hills of Orissa noting that the company violated the environment and forests rules, it put the $12 billion project by South Korean steelmaker Posco...

It will be tabled in the budget session of Parliament: Kharge Manmohan's nod obtained for amendment 17 amendments to impose higher penalties In a move that will benefit 55 lakh workers in the mining sector in the country, the Union Labour and Employment Ministry is amending the National Mines Act 1952. The Amendment Bill would be tabled during the budget session of Parliament. Announcing this at a press conference at the Karnataka Pradesh Congress...

Every time Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh says no to a project, his critics give him a new label: Green fundamentalist, anti-business, anti-growth, obstructionist, Luddite and Dr. No. The job has rarely attracted so much attention, but Ramesh has turned a sleepy and apathetic ministry into a controversial one in recent months. His pronouncements have stopped projects worth billions of dollars, creating powerful enemies in industry and business. His political colleagues have...